Our inaugural workshop was held in Cambridge on November 17 to 19, 2013.

Presentations from this workshop are available to download on the Keynotes page.

Experts from diverse, overlapping, and often disconnected communities such as clinical medicine, medical image analysis, and machine learning - as well as representatives from medical companies and funding agencies - came together for a unique, one-day workshop to discuss some of today’s most pressing issues concerning the medical imaging community.

Through cross-discipline interaction and discussions, attendees explored opportunities for translating the more established research outcomes into useful technological products.

Workshop themes

Translating research outcomes into clinical workflows

The lead-time that is needed to introduce new imaging concepts into commercial products is currently approximately five to six years. While this compares favourably with the 10- to 15-years that are required to introduce a new medication into the clinic, a shorter lead-time would bring much-needed efficiency and cost benefits to healthcare providers, and improved care for patients. Barriers to implementation may occur through the time needed for clinical validation, the cost of hardware and software development, or the process of regulatory approval. Are there ways in which we, as a multidisciplinary community, can work together to overcome some of these barriers?

Accurate volumetric imaging of tumours and other structures over time

Modern diagnostic imaging techniques can identify pathology within the human body to sub-millimetre resolution, and the development of imaging hardware, with concomitant improvements in spatial resolution, have yielded tangible benefits in the clinic. However, an equally important role for imaging is in the assessment of treatment response, and here the rate limiting step is often the time available to the radiologist for reading of a longitudinal image series. Within the cancer therapy domain, the development of molecularly targeted therapies now make greater demands on imaging. Precise volumetric and textural assessments of tumours over time are required to guide treatment. How can we use our expertise to assist the radiologist to process and report upon multiple points in time and multiple modality images as quickly and accurately as possible?

Presentations from this workshop are available to download on the Keynotes page.